The Parting Shot with H. Alan Scott

Will Sharpe has been on a roll since White Lotus, and now he's taking on one of fiction's most iconic roles — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Starz original series ‘Amadeus.’ Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott chats with Sharpe about keeping Mozart grounded, the chemistry with co-star Paul Bettany and what it's like to navigate a career that just keeps getting bigger.  Subscribe to my newsletter: https:...

Tony and Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf reflects on her remarkable Broadway season, Death of a Salesman, co-star Nathan Lane and the enduring legacy of Roseanne’s Aunt Jackie.  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy N...

Sally Field opens up about playing Tova in Netflix's Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on the bestselling book—a story about loneliness, loss and an unlikely bond with an octopus. (Yes, an octopus.) “It has always been hard for me to find roles that I wanted to do, even in supposedly the prime of my motion picture career,” Field told Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott.  Subscr...

Michelle Pfeiffer and Nick Offerman talk Apple TV’s Margo's Got Money Troubles, working with David E. Kelley and that infamous Catwoman Oscars snub for Batman Returns. (She was robbed!) This is one you’re not going to want to miss.   Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://link...

Richard Gadd follows Baby Reindeer with Half Man, an HBO limited series about two repressed ‘brothers’ in Glasgow. “I came up with the two characters ,and I couldn't shake them.”  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and...

Jessica Vosk on stepping into Bette Midler's legacy with the Broadway musical ‘Beaches’ and why she's not your typical Broadway girl.  "There's a lot of C.C. [Bloom] in Jessica," Vosk said. "A person who is so focused, blinders on, true grit, willing to just crawl through the mud by yourself to get to where you want to go. I also base a lot of my life o...

Before Friday's MTV finale, the top three queens of RuPaul's Drag Race season 18 join H. Alan Scott to reflect on their path to the crown. Darlene Mitchell, Nini Coco and Myki Meeks talk about Snatch Game wins, lip sync battles, the now-iconic banana bag of tricks and the sensible shoes that became a season-long talking point. They open up about the friendships forged in the workroom, th...

Lisa Rinna has made a career out of saying yes, and it's working. The actress, author and reality television icon joins us to talk about her New York Times bestselling memoir, ‘You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It,’ her reinvention on ‘The Traitors,’ why COVID dance videos changed everything, and how she knew it was time to walk away from ‘Real Housewives of Beverly...

Billy Magnussen has spent the past twenty years adding diverse roles to his resume, and ‘The Audacity’ is emblematic of an actor coming into his own. Magnussen joins H. Alan Scott to talk about playing tech CEO Duncan Park in AMC's buzzy new series: why no character is a villain in their own story, how he built a man whose good intentions curdled into greed, and what...

What’s going on with reality TV? Why is it so... bad right now? Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott is joined by Newsweek colleagues (and reality TV fanatics) Jenni Fink and Lauren Giella to break down the state of reality television. From oversaturation and the YouTube disruption to the kumbaya effect killing our favorite franchises, they get into why reality TV is at a turning point and what&nbsp...

This week, the internet handed conservatives two gifts wrapped in irony, and they opened both boxes with a press release and a cease-and-desist threat that didn't even exist. Druski's two-minute sketch about "conservative women" racked up over 160 million views on X alone — and the right responded with outrage instead of self-awareness. Then the Daily Mail dropped a report clai...

CBS News journalist David Begnaud has spent decades telling other people's stories. Now he's building something of his own. Begnaud joins the Parting Shot Podcast to talk about launching Do Good Crew, his new media company anchored by the podcast The Person Who Believed in Me, which has already featured Oprah Winfrey, Barry Diller and Ava DuVernay. He breaks down how...

Riz Ahmed wants to make "category killers" — and ‘ Bait ,’ his new Prime Video series about a London actor faking a James Bond audition, is exactly that. He sits down with Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to talk about the show's wild tonal range, why being brown in the West can feel like living in a spy thriller, and whether ‘ Bait’  is, as he puts it, his James Bond auditio...

The Comeback is back, and Michael Patrick King is here to talk about it. The co-creator and director joins Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to break down how he and Lisa Kudrow arrived at the idea of Valerie Cherish being cast in the first sitcom written by AI, what it means to finally see Valerie in the real world without cameras, and why they only return to the show when there's a seismic cultural shift...

Dan Bucatinsky has been in Valerie Cherish's corner since the very beginning, and he's here to make the case for why she's always been a heroine, not a punchline. The actor and producer behind Billy, Valerie’s manager, joins Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to talk about what makes this final season of The Comeback so emotionally satisfying, how the show manages to tackl...

She's back, and she needs to be heard. Lisa Kudrow joins the Newsweek's H. Alan Scott to talk about  The Comeback  season three, the one we didn't know we were waiting for but absolutely needed. We get into an evolved Valerie Cherish navigating AI, a gut-punch tribute to Robert Michael Morris and what it means that Val is suddenly the one in the room who has it m...

South by Southwest is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and it looks different than it ever has. Greg Rosenbaum, the festival's head of programming, joins me to talk about the creative reset forced by the demolition of the Austin Convention Center, the new neighborhood clubhouse model that's embedding communities throughout the city, and what it actually means to run all of SXSW simultaneously for...

The Outlander audience is massive, and I learned that firsthand when I chatted with Caitríona Balfe, who plays Claire in the beloved, long-running Starz series. The response to that conversation, and to the show itself, was overwhelming. So I started wondering: who is the person who truly understands this fandom from the inside out? Turns out, she exists, and her name is Reshma...

Some stories don't have clean endings. A.J. Daulerio published Hulk Hogan's sex tape, watched Gawker collapse under the weight of a $140 million lawsuit, and spent years wondering if he'd ever work again. He was somewhere between 90 and 100 days sober when he sat in that courtroom. He didn't know yet that all of it, the public humiliation, the professional e...

I love weird. I especially love weird when it incorporates my favorite moments in pop culture. So when I recently saw Linus Karp and Joseph Martin's live show "Gwyneth Goes Skiing," a sort of musical retelling of Gwyneth Paltrow's 2023 ski crash trial, I knew I needed to chat with them.  Turns out Karp and Martin are a pop culture nerd's favorite duo, because they've done...

Jenna Lewis-Dougherty and Kyle Fraser join Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to break down their Survivor 50 exits, shocking game moves and who they're rooting for to win it all.  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott     See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy N...

Tom Ellis is ready for his next chapter. The actor talks CBS’  CIA , the new Dick Wolf drama he couldn't turn down. It’s a character who won't be naked like  Lucifer  but could still “put you on the floor with one move.”  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott &nbsp...

Gabriel Basso is back as Peter Sutherland in season three of Netflix’s The Night Agent, and he's thinking big. "Relatability breeds success and success kills relatability.” It's a juxtaposition that shapes both his character and his outlook on his career.  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow...

Caitriona Balfe reflects on the final season of the STARZ epic historical drama Outlander, bidding farewell to Claire, and to Sam Heughan’s Jamie Fraser after spending a “quarter of our lives” on the show.    Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott   See Privacy Policy at https://a...

Daniel Radcliffe on starring with Tracy Morgan in The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, his Broadway journey and Harry Potter: “I love that people love those movies.”  Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com   Follow me:  https://linktr.ee/halanscott   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https:/...